Software development can be a difficult and time consuming process. Specialized training and knowledge are generally required, and often years of experience is needed, before an individual can develop a complex and/or custom software application. Those who do not possess these skills must employ a software developer or software development company to do the software development, often at great expense. In addition, once the software development process has started, it can take weeks, months, or even years to develop custom and/or complex software.
Developing custom software applications to be used online or with mobile devices generally involves programming in a high-level programming language such as C# or Java. The more flexibility and power a software application has, the more time consuming and cost prohibitive it becomes for many organizations to fund or build. Even when software application developers utilize pre-built components to cost share among several clients, many projects remain time consuming to build due to unique requirements of each organization.
In some cases, software applications can be purchased off-the-shelf, but then an organization is limited to the features of the off-the-shelf product. Customization is often difficult, time consuming, and/or expensive, just as original software development would be.
Based on their incredibly powerful business analysis, record keeping and organizational capabilities, spreadsheets are now ubiquitous in business. Spreadsheets are used in business more than any category of software, except perhaps word processors. However, spreadsheets themselves lack the conceptual framework to be used as a platform tool to build software applications. At best, existing spreadsheet software may allow a user to include program code to perform one or more custom functions. However, that program code still must be written in an advanced language, such as Visual Basic, which again requires advanced programming skill, capabilities, and resources.